Hanetration - Murmurist EP

If you found yourself hooked to the recent second series of cult sci-fi thriller Utopia then the music of Hanetration will probably feel immediately familiar to you. Not because s/he makes the soundtrack for that show (although s/he might – s/he’s a very secretive chap/ess) but because the queasy backwards ebbs, low, quasi-human hums and moans, and general air of stomach-cramping unease one heard on Utopia are all present and correct here.

I’m using a TV show as a reference point because Murmurist really doesn’t sound like a lot of other stuff, except for previous Hanetration EPs, of course. Sure, Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada are in there somewhere, but they’d be quite lazy comparisons when the likes of ‘Morning’ and ‘Wither’ sound most like being assaulted by some evil mutant hybrid of Home Counties church organ music.

Which, to be clear, is not a bad thing. It is challenging though, even for those who actively seek out such sounds. Hanetration’s music sounds like wandering around a churchyard on a gloomy winter late-afternoon, the light gradually failing and the cold beginning to bite at your cheeks. There’s even a track called ‘Sundown’ here.

This is music which is desolate but undeniably beautiful. The tin clanking percussion which accompanies the organ drones of the closing ‘Sundown’ lends a tribal, sacred atmosphere, like an ancient rite is being performed on the downs by the local branch of the Women’s Institute. Don’t get too close or you’ll probably find yourself being used as ingredients for their next fund-raising buffet.